CHAPTER XVIII
As night melted into day and day was swallowed up by night, the problemwhich confronted Peter took on more serious and baffling proportions.His hope of entering the ivory palace was dismissed. It was imperativefor him to give up the idea of entering, of piercing the lines of armedguards and reaching the room where the master of the City of StolenLives held forth until some later time.
That had been his earlier ambition, but the necessity of discarding theoriginal plan became hourly more important with the drawing near of thegirl captive.
If he could deliver Miss Vost from this dreadful city, that would bemore than an ample reward for his long, adventurous quest.
He could not sleep. Perched on an ancient leather stool upon the roofof the wireless building, he kept a nightly and a daily watch with hiseyes fixed upon the drawbridge. A week went by. Food was carried upto him, and he scarcely touched it. The rims of his eyes becamescarlet from sleeplessness, and he muttered constantly, like a man onthe verge of insanity, as his eyes wandered back and forth over the redfilth, from the shadowy bridge to the shining white of the palace.
Drearily, like souls lost and wandering in a half world, the prisonersof Len Yang trudged to the scarlet maws of the mine and were engulfedfor long, pitiless hours, and were disgorged, staggering and blinking,in Tibet's angry evening sun.
The woeful sight would madden any man. And yet each day new souls wereborn to the grim red light of Len Yang's day, and clinging remorsefullyto the hell which was their lot, other bleeding souls departed, andtheir shrunken bodies fed to the scarlet trough, where they were washedinto oblivion in some sightless cavern below.
It was a bitterly cold night, with the wind blowing hard from the iceand snow on the Tibetan peaks, when Peter's long vigilance wasrewarded. A booming at the gate, followed by querulous shouts, arousedhim from his lethargy. He looked out over the crenelated wall, but thecold moonlight revealed a vacant street.
The booming and shouting persisted, and Peter was sure that Miss Vosthad come, for in cities of China only an extraordinary event causesdrawbridges to be lowered.
He slipped down the creaking ladder into the wireless-room. Harrisonwas in a torpor, muttering inanely and pleadingly as his long, whitefingers opened and closed, perhaps upon imagined gold.
Peter opened the heavy brass door, and let himself into the desertedstreet. The jeweled sandals with which Chang had provided him sankdeep into the red mire, and remained there.
He sped on, until he reached the black shadow of the great green wall.Suddenly the bridge gave way with many creakings and groanings andPeter saw the moonlight upon the silvery white road beyond.
A group of figures, mounted on mules, with many pack-mules inattendance, made a grotesque blot of shadow. Then a shrill scream.
Hoofs trampled hollowly upon the loose, rattling boards, and thecavalcade marched in.
A slim figure in a long, gray cloak rode on the foremost mule. Peter,aided by the black shadow, crept to her side.
"Miss Vost! Miss Vost!" he called softly. "It is Peter, Peter Moore!"
He heard her gasp in surprise, and her moan went into his heart like aragged knife.
Peter tried to keep abreast, but the red clay dragged him back. Behindhim some one shouted. They would emerge into the sharp moonlight inanother second.
"Help me! Oh, help me!" she sobbed. "He's following! He is too late!"
She was carried out into the moonlight. At the same time, countlessfigures seemed to rise from the ground--from nowhere--and in everydirection Peter was blocked. The stench of Len Yang's miserableinhabitants crept from these figures upon the chill night air.
Naked, unclean shoulders brushed him; moist, slimy hands pressed himback. But he was not harmed; he was simply pushed backward andbackward until his bare foot encountered the first board of the bridgewhich was still lowered.
Behind him an order was hissed. He placed his back to the surgingshadows. Coils of heavy rope were unfolding. The drawbridge was beingraised.
Down the white road, veering drunkenly from one side to the other, camea leaping black dot.
The drawbridge creaked, the ropes became taut, and the far end liftedan inch at a time.
Peter shouted, but no one heeded him. His breath pumped in and out ofhis lungs in short, anguished gulps. He leaped out upon the bridge,and shouted again. The creaking ceased; the span became stationary.
The drunken dot leaped into the form of a giant upon a galloping mulewhich swept upon them in a confusion of dust. Hoofs pounded on thebridge; the giant on the mule drew rein, and to Peter it was given tolook upon the face of the man he thought dead. The raging eyes ofBobbie MacLaurin swept from his face to his muddy feet.
"Moore! Where have they taken her?" ripped out the giant on the mule.
"Dismount and follow me. To the white palace! Are you armed?"
"And ready to shoot every dam' yellow snake in all of China!"
He jumped heavily to the boards, and Peter caught the gleam ofsteel-tipped bullets in the narrow strap which was slung from shoulderto waist.
The foreman of the rope-pullers dared to raise his head, and Bobbiekicked him with his heavy-shod foot in the stomach, and the cooliebounded up and backward, and lay draped limply over the side.
As they ran under the broad, dark arch into the street, he gave Peterin one hand the thick butt of an army automatic, and in the other ahalf-dozen loaded clips.
And they began blazing their way to the palace steps. Weird figuressprang up from the muck, and were shot back to earth.
They reached the hill top, and the green moon of Tibet scored the roofof the white palace.
A handful of guards, with rifles and swords, rushed down the broad, lowflight.
The two men flung themselves upon the clay, while high-powered bulletsplunked on either side of them or soughed overhead. The two automaticsblazed in shattering chorus. The guards parted, backed up, some ranaway, others fell, and Peter felt the sudden burn of screaming leadacross his shoulder. He slipped another clip of cartridges into thesteel butt; they leaped up and raced to the white steps. A riflespurted and roared in the black shadow. Bobbie groaned, staggered, andclimbed on. Now they were guided by a woman's sharp cries issuing froman areaway. And they stopped in amazement before a majesticwhite-marble portal.
With two coolies struggling to pinion her arms, the girl was kicking,scratching, biting with the fire of a wildcat, dragging them toward thebroad, white veranda.
Bobbie shot the foremost of them through the brain, and the other,gibbering terribly, vanished into the shadow.
Peter caught Miss Vost by one hand and raced down the steps. Bobbie,holding his head in a grotesque gesture, ran and staggered behind them.
Bobbie waved his free arm savagely. "Don't wait for me! Get her outof this place! Don't take your eyes from her till you reach Wenchow!"
He wheeled and shot three times at a figure which had stolen up behindhim. The figure spun about and seemed to melt into a hole in the earth.
Peter wrapped his arm about Bobbie's waist and dragged him down thehill. Miss Vost, as he realized after that demonstration in theareaway, could handle herself.
The bridge was up. Lights glowed from hovel ways like evil red eyes.Peter released the rope and the bridge sprang down to the road with aboom that shook the solid walls. Bobbie's mule nosed toward them, andPeter all but shot the friendly little animal!
Between Peter and Miss Vost, who was chattering and weeping as if herheart was breaking, their wounded companion was lifted into the saddle.They crossed the bridge, and the bridge was whipped up behind them.
Not until they attained the brow of the hill did they look back uponthe gloomy walls, now black and peaceful under the high clear moon.And it was not until then that Peter marveled upon their easy escape,upon the snatching up of the bridge as they left. Why had no shotsbeen fired at them as they climbed the silver road?
They trusted to no provi
dence other than flight. All night long theyhastened toward the highway which led to Ching-Fu--and India. And theyhad no breath to spare for mere words. At any moment the long arm ofthe Gray Dragon might reach out and pluck them back.
Only once they paused, while Peter ripped out the satin lining of hisrobe and bound up the wound in Bobbie's dazed head.
Miss Vost sat down upon a moss-covered rock and wept. She made noeffort to help him, but stared and wiped her eyes with her hands.
A misty, rosy dawn found them above the valley in which ran theconnecting road between Ching-Fu and the Irriwaddi.
Miss Vost was the first to see the camp-fires of a caravan. Shelaughed, then cried, and she tottered toward Peter, who stood there, alean weird figure in his tattered blue robe and his tangled beard.
She extended her arms slightly as she approached, and her gray eyeswere luminous with a soft and gentle fire.
Bobbie staggered away from the mule's heaving sides, with one handfumbling weakly at the satin bandage, and in his eyes, too, was thelook that rarely comes into the eyes of men.
In a single glance Peter could see to the very depths of that man'sunselfish soul. It was like glancing into the light of a golden autumnmorning.
Miss Vost lifted both of Peter's hands, and one was still blue from theback-fire of the automatic. She lifted them to her lips and kissedthem solemnly. With a little fluttering sigh she looked up at Bobbie,standing beside her and towering above her like a strong hill.
They looked long at one another, and Peter felt for a moment curiouslynegligible. He had cause to feel that his presence was absolutelyunessential when, with a happy, soft little laugh, Miss Vost sprang upand was crushed in the cradle of Bobbie's great arms.
Peter looked down into the green valley with tears standing in hisgrave, blue eyes. The caravan was slowly winding out upon the trail.In five weeks it would leave Kalikan, the last soil of China, on thefrontier of India.
Peter felt exceedingly happy as he hastened down the hillside to catchthe caravan.
Peter the Brazen: A Mystery Story of Modern China Page 18